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Saturday, June 5, 2010

I was in a coffee shop reading for school. I was reading an article about patients writing illness narratives. It was arguing that such stories can be seen as a political act against a biomedical model that sees patient merely as disease and not as an whole being. I have issues with some of what the authors argue. I don't really see one nice neat narrative in illness. It's more like different stories of good days and bad days and, while, there might be a beginning, for people with chronic illness there is no end, or at least not in life.

When I got toward the end of paper I started to tear up... which was kind of weird, because I still wasn't into the article. By the end it argues that nurses are in a position to dialogue with patients and create a sort of co-constructed narrative of illness that suits both the practictioner and the patient. Fair enough, I guess, but I just didn't find it incredibly mindblowing. So, I couldn't really figure out why I was suddenly all choked up...

And then I realized that this was playing in the background:

How did we stop listening and seeing one another to the point that we have to write hundreds, if not thousands or millions of pages about love and care? And only to be one-upped by a simple love song playing in the background of a coffee shop?

Quite very simply: I just need you to stand with me-- not ask me inane questions about my medical devices or condition for your own purpose or judge me or tell me I'm not trying hard enough... Just stand by me.